Puerto Rico

We started our evening tour of Old San Juan at the dreaded statue of Christopher Columbus. I say dreaded because our guide had such strong feelings about poor, old Chris. “I guess I have to talk about him. But, I hate him!” Antonio spat. I waited with bated breath to hear more. However, he never really got into the details of what Chris had done. Before we left the statue he hissed, “I despise him!”. I caught up with him and asked him about something he had said. “Do you think that Columbus is personally responsible for the deaths of thousands?” “Yes, I do,” was his grim reply.

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Pause for Thought

Let’s pause for thought. The man has been dead for approximately 500 years and yet this man stirs such revulsion in you that you can barely stand it. Is there not something suspect here? I think I smell a rat. (Click here if you want to see and hear about rats in this post.) Could it possibly be that hating Christopher Columbus serves some purpose or promotes an agenda?

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The Myth of the Blue Pavers in Old San Juan

Legend has it that the waste resulting from iron smelting was cast into blocks and used as ballast (counterweight) in the empty Spanish galleons coming to Puerto Rico. Nice recycling work. The ships would then leave with gold and sugar, and the blocks were then used to pave the roads. Our guide said that this is a myth. He said they were bought in Liverpool, England in 1784 for the express purpose of paving the roads. It’s your call.

The Myth of La Rogativa

The story is that when the English surrounded the city in 1797, the townsfolk paraded through the streets with torches praying to God to deliver them from the clutches of the English Sea Dogs. Apparently, the English saw this and thought, “Oh my God! Look at them all. We’ll never survive a fight with them. Let’s get out of here”. And they got out of there. Our guide said that it never happened and that this statue promotes the myth.

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“I Hate Those Lambs”

Our group was standing right in front of the two lamb statues in the Plaza del Quinto Centenario. It seemed odd that our guide was talking about everything related to this square except the lambs staring us right in the face. I finally asked Antonio if those were indeed lambs. He scowled and said, “Yes. I didn’t want to talk about them. I hate them! Lie down! Be quiet! Be good! Achhh!” He went on to say that Puerto Ricans were supposed to act like lambs and he was just incensed by the idea. He quickly drew our attention away from the lambs to the totem pole behind the lambs. I asked him what the totem meant. He said he didn’t know but that it had great clay figures on it.

For our information, the lamb symbolizes Christ as the lamb of God. Puerto Rico is a Catholic island so it’s understandable that the most important symbol in the Catholic Church is in its coat of arms. The totem pole with clay figures represents the origins of the peoples of the Americas. You can see it rising up from behind the goat’s head.

“Medieval Crap”

In the whole of the western hemisphere this church, the San José Church is the second oldest surviving example of 16th-century Spanish Gothic architecture. Pretty cool. Our group was passing by this church that I’d been in earlier when I said to Antonio, “You’re not allowed to take pictures in there.” “Really?” asked Antonio. He was incredulous. He said, “If I went in there, I would take a picture.” “You’re a rebel,” I told him. Seeing his surprise I quickly added, “I mean that in a good way.” I also told him that it was the first time I’d ever heard singing in a Catholic Church. “It’s some medieval crap” he snorted. Still, I never thought Catholics sang, and I’m Catholic.